Part of their reasoning for nerfing Eternal Flame was to make the other talents more attractive to us, but they then nerfed SS for us as well.

Just a note since the front page reflects the baseline sacred shield has been changed to the good old 'holy shield' name and icon, I'll refer to that when talking about the Prot version.

I'd be fine with that logic if Holy was using SS, but they weren't. Yes, you lost your moderate tank shield but gained a moderate tank CD should you be using beacon as a tank heal. I don't think that's enough to make it competitive with EF, but in that case the change in SS is meaningless.

What you mentioned previously about Holy getting nerfed and Prot getting essentially buffed is arguably true, but keep in mind that something had to give. Protection needed the change and Retribution wanted the change to something more suitable. They may end up nerfing HS to compensate, but I don't see that happening.

I think EF needed a nerf. It was so dominant because it was simply WoG+x amount of healing, no one went with SS once blanketing and such was discovered. That does not mean however, that I think Holy needs a nerf. Holy in the current model is in need of a serious redesign, or at least big HPS buffs to keep relevant to top tier raiding.

Most healers are edging towards very offensive play. Monks and Discs already have a huge impact in DPS at this point due to atonement and fistweaving, resto is getting an atonement style CD and shaman have a shitty version with the mana return. Holy has Denounce, expensive as shit and does fuck all damage.

If they don't want holy playing offensively, or having the tools to do so, they do need to be a major player in the healing game. I don't think holy paladins do enough right now to justify their place over a disc priest on a progression fight.

You never know, those buffs might still be coming.

edit: Just to clarify that, it's not that DPS is *all* that matters, it's more that there's not enough between paladins and disc/monks to justify how much damage is lost. It's a similar issue with protection paladins, there's no major difference in damage intake between a top prot paladin or warrior, but the paladin will do 2-3 times the damage. On fights where the enrage is the biggest threat, that difference is a big draw for most top guilds.

Your whole reasoning is, Prot paladins didn't have a choice and had to get Sacred Shield so it should be baseline. But then you go on to say Eternal Flame needed nerfed because it was too dominant for holy. I don't really see how you can say with a straight face. Prot didn't need the change. You are arguably the best tank in the game currently. You didn't need the buff this gives you. And damage intake between a warrior and paladin, you will heal through a lot of the damage while the warrior will not. Any holy paladin can verify that their beacon will heal for significantly more on a warrior tank than a paladin tank.

Eternal Flame was better then the current Sacred Shield, but now that eternal flame as been nerfed it likely could have been competitive to use it over Eternal Flame at least in some fights because using Sacred shield + Light of Dawn in place of Eternal flame could do good HPS just not more than Eternal Flame blanketing. And the new Sacred Shield talent gives us a cooldown for the beacon target(the tank most likely) that basically requires them or the healers to mess up every 2 minutes to get full use. No one will use it in pve. Until they do the buffs you say "might" happen(not holding my breath for them) there should have been no nerfs to Eternal Flame, especially not while reworking the only other viable option in that tier for us to be not viable.

I haven't raided really since 5.1 but I LOVED targetting the tank or my PvP partner with Sacred Shield. The only benefit for Ret is the passive nature, so really, the best thing about it is when I'm CCed in PvP I'm not automatically dead if I get stunned and bursted down (They'll have to kill 30% more)

PvE Ret, and kind of like it. Given the amount of haste we'll likely have during the final tier, and the 4 set putting free Divine Storms on our rotation, we probably won't have many GCDs free to use the current SS.

Although in this version SS works in a way of a passive oh-sh..-button, this is definitely a major nerf to the (sort of) active mitigation of a prot pally. 2 minutes is quite a long time, think about all the damage that could have been absorbed during this CD and how much healing would be necessary to compensate for that. For tanks it is always better to avoid damage in any way than counter-heal it.
For holy this isn't desirable as well. EF gives much more flexibility than a passive addition to beacon with a "I hope the tank drops below 30%, so that my one big shield will ever pop up"-gimmick. No sane healer wants that to happen, I would freak most healer out to see the tank dropping that low.
The only useful scenario for this change is for PvP rets. In PvE it should be useless, or there is something entirely wrong if this is "used" often. And even as a PvP ret I would more likely go with SH, because it leeds to an instant heal and a sort of lay on hands for any arena partners.

It might be nice to get such a functionality on top of all three talents of the related tier. But I personally like all three talents in their current state. They are all useful in certain situation and they are quite flexible. In addition they are not as mindless as many other alternatives.

Although in this version SS works in a way of a passive oh-sh..-button, this is definitely a major nerf to the (sort of) active mitigation of a prot pally. 2 minutes is quite a long time, think about all the damage that could have been absorbed during this CD and how much healing would be necessary to compensate for that. For tanks it is always better to avoid damage in any way than counter-heal it.
For holy this isn't desirable as well. EF gives much more flexibility than a passive addition to beacon with a "I hope the tank drops below 30%, so that my one big shield will ever pop up"-gimmick. No sane healer wants that to happen, I would freak most healer out to see the tank dropping that low.
The only useful scenario for this change is for PvP rets. In PvE it should be useless, or there is something entirely wrong if this is "used" often. And even as a PvP ret I would more likely go with SH, because it leeds to an instant heal and a sort of lay on hands for any arena partners.

It might be nice to get such a functionality on top of all three talents of the related tier. But I personally like all three talents in their current state. They are all useful in certain situation and they are quite flexible. In addition they are not as mindless as many other alternatives.

Read all the patch notes.

SS in its current form is going to be baseline for prot. This new SS is just a bonus.

In it's current state, this is a huge buff to prot pallies - giving them an additional passive major 2 min cd.
I can see them nerfing the "old" sacred shield spell to scale less with vengence and/or haste to compensate tbh.

Originally Posted by Erin

Ignore him. As much as I love rawhammer, I doubt he's said one useful sentance in his entire life <3

it would sound to me that if you take the Sacred Shield talent, it would replace the new baseline Sacred Shied... making each one fight dependent

this may be so, but if it was i cant see people replacing a 120k+ absorb shield (at least) every 4 secs with a 250k absorb shield once every 2 mins. Madness imo.

It would make much more sense for prot to always take EF - the potential for a large EF hot in conjuction with the large absorb-over-time from SS means that healers can just ignore us even more then they already do.

Ofc im still expecting a significant "old" ss nerf.

Last edited by rawhammer; 2013-06-20 at 08:38 AM.

Originally Posted by Erin

Ignore him. As much as I love rawhammer, I doubt he's said one useful sentance in his entire life <3

Shitty for PVE, and 2 minute ICD is lolable for PVP. Very few people would take it in that form.

What else would you take?

A lot of people are forgetting that it's Eternal Flame's initial heal, not ticks, that's gutted to a level below what it would be at without the talent. In situations where the initial heal is far more valuable than the ticks (read: PvP and many PvE scenarios also), you're taking a trap by taking the talent.

Taking that talents actually leaves you worse off than just not taking any fucking talent at all.

It would make much more sense for prot to always take EF - the potential for a large EF hot in conjuction with the large absorb-over-time from SS means that healers can just ignore us even more then they already do.

This would make sense only if your AP is high to the point where your WoG is overhealing (which in some scenarios, it could be), otherwise, it's actually a negative benefit taking EF. You gain some extra ticks but lose a significant amount of burst healing to protect yourself from spike damage.

A lot of people are forgetting that it's Eternal Flame's initial heal, not ticks, that's gutted to a level below what it would be at without the talent. In situations where the initial heal is far more valuable than the ticks (read: PvP and many PvE scenarios also), you're taking a trap by taking the talent.

Taking that talents actually leaves you worse off than just not taking any fucking talent at all.

Selfless Healer is the only choice in PVE and PVP for Ret if that version of Sacred Shield, as it is, goes through. If they buff it by lowering the ICD, it'll only really be good for PVP still but competes with Selfless Healer so.. yeah. Can't see this change sticking.

This would make sense only if your AP is high to the point where your WoG is overhealing (which in some scenarios, it could be), otherwise, it's actually a negative benefit taking EF. You gain some extra ticks but lose a significant amount of burst healing to protect yourself from spike damage.

My comment was in context that the 2 min passive SS would replace our current SS spell if chosen on that tier as per Ganstagore's comment.

Well if the choice on that tier was to have selfless healer (meh), EF (better but still meh) or to replace SS with the 2 min passive version (situational but likely meh) i know which i'd normally take - EF. Then again i doubt id actually cast EF often if at all as ShotR uptime would still be better use of resources.

Originally Posted by Erin

Ignore him. As much as I love rawhammer, I doubt he's said one useful sentance in his entire life <3

Ret PVP here. I liked the old mechanic, and I'm pleased that it's back. Imo, put it baseline with 1 min icd for Ret. If not baseline, 1 min icd is necessary to make it compete with SH from an RBG pov, that's my opinion.